Linux Find Out CPU Architecture Information

by nixCraft on May 26, 2011 · 12 comments· last updated at June 26, 2012

How do I find out my CPU architecture information under Linux operating systems?

You can use /proc/cpuinfo file or use the lscpu command to get info about CPU architecture. It will display information like:

Number of CPUs
Threads
Cores
Sockets
NUMA nodes
Information about CPU caches,
CPU family, model and stepping.
in human-readable format. Alternatively, it can print out in parsable
format including how different caches are shared by different CPUs,
which can also be fed to other programs.

Open a terminal and type the following command:
$ less /proc/cpuinfo
OR
$ lscpu
Sample outputs:

Architecture:          x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit
CPU(s):                8
Thread(s) per core:    2
Core(s) per socket:    4
CPU socket(s):         1
NUMA node(s):          1
Vendor ID:             GenuineIntel
CPU family:            6
Model:                 30
Stepping:              5
CPU MHz:               1199.000
Virtualization:        VT-x
L1d cache:             32K
L1i cache:             32K
L2 cache:              256K
L3 cache:              8192K

OR see lscpu output using the following video:

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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }

1 vamsi May 27, 2011 at 4:07 am

/proc/cpuinfo

is this file dynamically generated or cached ?
can we edit this file ?

Thanks !

2 Vivek Gite May 27, 2011 at 9:04 am: No you cannot edit this file.
Reply
3 Philippe Petrinko May 27, 2011 at 2:09 pm: Some more info: http://www.richweb.com/cpu_info
Reply

4 Tapas Mallick June 7, 2011 at 11:38 am

is “lscpu” available for redhat and its variants ? It is really a cool command/tool to have with all Linux System Administrator.

5 Philippe Petrinko June 7, 2011 at 12:53 pm

Tapas,

If [lscpu] does not exist for your distribution, you can always create a shell alias to create a shortcut of the following command

Then afterwards, you can use this command anywhere.
Just add it to your personal Bash customization startup file, located into your home directory, namely [ ~/.bashrc ] or sometimes specific included file [ ~/.bash-aliases ].

Have fun !

6 Tryme June 7, 2011 at 1:22 pm

Philippe,

Useless use of cat???

alias lscpu=”/bin/grep -E 'processor|model name|cache size|core|sibling|physical' /proc/cpuinfo”

Tapas,

lscpu command available on latest version of Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL 6 and above.

7 Philippe Petrinko June 7, 2011 at 3:02 pm

“Useless use of cat?”

Yeah, quite right, of course.

This will do the trick!

8 Tapas Mallick June 8, 2011 at 7:11 am: Appreciate your comment, but a vanilla grepping of /proc/cpuinfo with specified fields are not enough to get lscpu like detailed output. Its lacking of “Number of Physical CPU, Core per CPU, Threads in each Core, L1/D1/D3 Cache size, CPU Mode, Virtualization Technology Used, NUMA Node ID”. Of course bit sophisticated grepping/sorting/uniq on /proc/cpuinfo with generate the required output, still precompiled version of lscpu will be a great add-on for systemadmins.
Reply

9 vijay gupta June 9, 2011 at 10:52 am

Really helpful commands.

10 david June 23, 2011 at 3:26 am

thankz for the article…i was searching for this…

11 eepeesalimep December 26, 2011 at 6:17 am

Vivek-

how we can check processor types like (dual core ,quadcore ) in linux mechine
suppose my cpuimfo out put like Intel Xeon(R) CPUX5355 @ 2.66GHz how i know this is dualcore or quad core processor ?

12 Gorth Durak July 18, 2012 at 2:52 am

as a c++ guy, I’m trying to get my barecomputer_o (Vettrasoft Z Directory object)
working on Debian linux – is there a [c function] OS API to get CPU info? I can
fork()/exec() or do system(“lscpu > /tmp/somefile”) and do a bunch fo grunt
Quick&Dirty hacking, not elegant
In microsoft-land, I use a combo of __cpuid (CPUInfo, 0); and embedded assembler,
eg,

#if zos_MSWindows
    __asm
    {
        mov     eax,    1
        cpuid
        mov     EAXBuf, eax     // version
        mov     EBXBuf, ebx     // brand idx, max # CPUs
        mov     ECXBuf, ecx     // extended feature info
        mov     EDXBuf, edx     // feature info
    }
#endif
    m_SteppingID = EAXBuf & 0x0000000F;
    m_Model      = EAXBuf & 0x000000F0;
    m_FamilyID   = EAXBuf & 0x00000F00;
    m_Model    >>= 4;
    m_FamilyID >>= 8;
    // etc etc.

Linux Find Out CPU Architecture Information

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